Free A Life In A Moment by Stefanos Livos

was
head over heels in love with him apparently. He was in the last year
of his Architecture degree, at the same university where she was
studying. Listening to her talk about him with such fond joy, an
unexpected desire came over me to steal some of that happiness and
sprinkle it like icing over my wounds.
    How badly
I wanted to swap places with Francois. It would be him travelling to
Paris and me waiting for Angelique in Strasbourg.
    The view
of the carriage filled with passengers who were talking, reading or
sleeping, brought me crashing back to reality. My thoughts filled
Angelique’s pauses.
    «May
I ask you something?»
    «Sure.»
    «Aren’t
you curious to know what Michalis and Ellie did that night when they
learnt you left Greece?»
    Was I?
Probably not.
    «I
think that, for the time being, I just want to forget about them. As
you said, to not look back. To be honest, when I was on the ship, I
wondered endlessly whether they’d apologise or not. But now,
even if they do, I’ll never be able to go back to Greece and be
with them. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.»
    «What
do you think will become of their relationship?»
    «I
don’t think it will last. They’ll split up. On the one
hand, they will fight over who is more to blame, and on the other,
they’ll have to face the music of Thanos and Natalia... How
long could they keep it up?»
    We talked
for hours on end about all sorts of things, important or trivial. It
was so intriguing talking to her. She had an informed opinion on
everything: art, literature, love, friendship, loneliness…
    During our
pauses, I carried on observing our fellow passengers. They were
splayed out in their seats, weary from their long journey. That
traveller’s expression I had observed hours before, at Milano
Centrale, now seemed to have crumpled.
    Angelique
had also allowed her eyes wander up and down the aisle. «Can
you imagine how many stories these people could tell? Some might be
even more outlandish than yours», she said, then paused for a
while before continuing. «You know what I do when I’m
amongst many people? I levitate off the ground with my mind. It’s
like flying. After I’ve reached a certain height, I feel I can
understand more things about them. It’s as if I can see the
threads that connect them. You may think it strange, but I believe
everybody on Earth is connected in some uncanny way. For example, one
of these passengers may have had a beer at your brother’s pub —
who knows?»
    I tried to
absorb her every word, and although I attempted a flight myself, I
didn’t manage to fly high enough.
    «Is
this also a way to feel closer to people?»
    «Yes,
in a way. For instance, when I was a little girl, I had a sense of
the life my grandmother lived in Paris, even though I’d never
been there. Isn’t it bizarre?»
    I didn’t
answer; it was more of a rhetorical question, anyway. We were both
tired, not of our conversation, but from the lazy light of an
overcast afternoon that made our eyes heavy. We spoke no more, as if
we had unspokenly agreed to suspend our talk. I dozed off quickly.
     

  26
     
    When I
woke up, I hastily looked around to see where I was. Next to me, I
saw Angelique sleeping languorously in her seat, like most of the
other passengers. Outside the window, the dusk had donned an
orange-red coat hanging from the sky, which was getting darker. The
journey continued.
    I shuffled
in my seat, generating staticky sounds. It was my bones protesting
the long immobility.
    I’ll
catch a plane , I thought. I was too
tired to continue the journey by train. A kind of impatience had come
over me and I felt more anxious with each passing minute. The expanse
of land we were traversing seemed endless.
    Angelique
turned in her seat and opened her eyes. She gazed at me without
speaking. A whole minute passed before she asked:
    «Didn’t
you sleep at all?»
    «Oh,
I did. I just woke up.»
    Her eyes
settled on my bruises. «They ache?»
    I told her
I’d